Access to Medicaid and Medicare

Updated:Jun 26,2013

Medicaid provides an important safety net for 16 million Americans with a history of heart disease, stroke or other forms of cardiovascular disease (CVD), including seniors living in nursing homes, children with congenital heart disease, and those who have been disabled by stroke, congestive heart failure or other CVD. As states move forward with expanding their Medicaid programs to low-income adults, it will become an increasingly important source of coverage for currently uninsured adults who have or are at risk for CVD. In addition, the vast majority of Medicare beneficiaries also have some form of CVD, and they depend on Medicare to provide stable, affordable health care for their conditions.

Our federal advocacy priorities for Medicaid and Medicare are:

Protect access to Medicaid and Medicare for the millions of Americans with heart disease and stroke.

Maintain the long-term sustainability of these two programs which are essential to our patient populations.

Make the impact on patients, particularly those who are most vulnerable, the central focus of any dialogue on health entitlement reform.

Ensure that entitlement reforms emphasize improvements in health care value, rather than shifting costs from the public to the private sector or from the government to beneficiaries.

Support changes that promote prevention and coordinated care and reward higher quality as the best approaches to achieve significant cost savings and improvements in health outcomes.

*All health/medical information on this website has been reviewed and approved by the American Heart Association, based on scientific research and American Heart Association guidelines. Use this link for more information on our content editorial process.